Hour after hour the
sun moved westward and the fish moved eastward, or disappeared
altogether, until at last when the fisherman cinched his mule,
sunset was nearer than he thought. Darkness caught him before he
could catch his trail. Not caring to tumble into some fifty-foot
hole, he "allowed" he was lost, and turned back. In half-an-hour
he was out of the hills, and under the stars of Estes Park, but
he saw no prospect of supper or of bed.
Estes Park was large enough to serve for a bed on a summer
night for an army of professors, but the supper question offered
difficulties. There was but one cabin in the Park, near its
entrance, and he felt no great confidence in finding it, but he
thought his mule cleverer than himself, and the dim lines of
mountain crest against the stars fenced his range of error. The
patient mule plodded on without other road than the gentle slope
of the ground, and some two hours must have passed before a light
showed in the distance. As the mule came up to the cabin door,
two or three men came out to see the stranger.
One of these men was Clarence King on his way up to the camp.
Adams fell into his arms. As with most friendships, it was never
a matter of growth or doubt. Friends are born in archaic
horizons; they were shaped with the Pteraspis in Siluria; they
have nothing to do with the accident of space.
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